Mystery Paradise: Wishing Power Demon

Regrettably, this fellow was quite cunning, and did not reveal his whereabouts to his old colleagues, which further confirmed Zither’s suspicion—this person had a rather rich anti-surveillance capability, knew how to conceal himself, and was definitely not a mere informant. Facing such an opponent, issuing a city-wide wanted order would not be meaningful, and might even provoke unnecessary criticism.

"Young Master, the Duke has returned," whispered an attendant at this moment.

Zither immediately dropped the interrogation record and headed upstairs. "Keep a close watch on him, don’t let any mistakes occur, or I will hold you accountable!" he warned.

Upon arriving at the palace, he saw Wilson Longjiu giving instructions to his subordinates, with his eldest and second brothers also present.

"Father, I have made some progress with the Paradise Sect—"

However, Duke Longjiu interrupted him directly.

"Report it to your eldest brother later, I don’t have time right now."

"But it’s about the news of the new gods..."

"Can’t you understand what I’m saying?" The father finally cast his gaze towards him, but there wasn’t the slightest warmth in his eyes, only a chillness as cold as the north sea breeze.

Eldest brother Qibai hurriedly pulled him back, "I will listen to you later, don’t bother father now."

Zither could only step aside for the moment.

"I will need to sequester the inner chambers of the palace for the next week, you’ll handle the external affairs. Without my permission, no one is to enter the inner chambers," Wilson ordered his ministers. "Currently our enemies are mainly concentrated in the west, the troops should be defensive as a priority, and there must be no slackening in equipment production. Do you all understand?"

The crowd responded in unison.

Wilson nodded, turned, and walked into the inner chamber. The guard team lined up in a row, holding their spears across the entrance, and it was clear that even if the legitimate sons of the Longjiu family wished to enter, they would be unhesitatingly stopped.

Qibai breathed a sigh of relief.

He patted his younger brother’s shoulder, "Why would you talk back to father, don’t you know his temperament?"

"But father assigned me to investigate this matter..."

"Yes, we all know that, but he has so many assignments, can’t you prioritize them at all?" chuckled the second brother as he chimed in, "There were outsiders present just now, it wasn’t appropriate for father to make a scene. If we were at the old home, he would have smacked you already!"

"Enough, talk less you too."

"Is everything going smoothly in Star Peak City?" Zither asked proactively.

"Of course, with father personally taking action, could there be any mistakes? Once the Panlogical Machine and the myriad of souls truly come to fruition, we will be able to bring earth-shattering changes to this world," bragged the second brother proudly.

"Why do we need to utilize the power of the Panlogical Machine? Isn’t it just a large library?"

"That..." Qibai coughed twice, "You will know later."

There it was again. The eldest brother knew the detailed plans of the father, perhaps the second brother also had a rough understanding, but he was always the last one to find out. Why? Just because he was not good at formation battles, unable to lead troops in conquest?

"By the way, with the Paradise Sect matter, to what extent have you grasped it?" the eldest brother steered the conversation back to business.

In Zither’s view, this was undoubtedly an attempt by the other party to avoid discussing the father’s grand plan any further.

"I got wind from the news agency that publishes the weekly report that the Paradise Sect might have deliberately sent someone to the Royal Capital to spread the news," he recounted Dane’s situation. "This person is very cunning, handing him over to the police would definitely yield nothing, we need to commission Li Tening to capture him."

"From the New Continent... to spread the influence of their sect, huh..." Qibai pondered, "There probably aren’t any frontier lands famous for making bizarre inventions there, indeed it’s somewhat concerning. Do you already have a capture plan?"

"I heard that this person once mingled in the Royal Capital for a while, and even had a bit of fame at that time. With a bit of effort put into gathering information, we should be able to get plenty of intel about him, which likely includes his weaknesses."

Finding weaknesses and then attacking based on these faults until the prey was forced to the surface—each time, this process was a pleasure for Zither.

"Alright, if you have a target in mind, let me know, and I will communicate with the Internal Affairs Department," Qibai nodded. "But there’s one thing you need to pay attention to, don’t overdo it. After all, this isn’t the Western Borderlands, and the nominal rulers of the Kingdom are still the Laurel Family."

"What do you mean?" Zither frowned.

"Do I really need to spell it out for you?" his brother shrugged, "You can capture people, but don’t let your twisted hobbies spill into your work. Our reputation is already not very good, if you further tarnish the Longjiu Family’s name, don’t blame me for being the first one to deal with you!"

Killing indiscriminately on the battlefield was okay, but being heavy-handed to obtain information was not?

Wasn’t intelligence warfare also a kind of warfare?

Zither felt veins throbbing on his forehead.

Yet, he dared not let the other party discover—because unlike Qibai, his brother would truly take action. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Understood, I will be careful,"

he said somberly, looking down.

...

In the western forest region of the Old Continent, Thistlefort.

A train laden with grain slowly pulled into the station.

Moge Weller stood at the head of the train, feeling both tense and scared. From the time he took on the task to his return, a total of ten days and nine hours had passed, and he had probably slept less than two total days. To procure a sufficient amount of grain as quickly as possible, he opted not to head to the large cities but instead contacted several small port cities to the south.

He had previously conducted business in these places and knew that the local consumption was mainly of fish and shellfish, with a few farms outside the towns, so food was basically self-sufficient. In addition, due to their seaside location, they faced minimal threat from the war, and fluctuations in grain prices were likely to be much smaller than those in inland big cities.

As Moge had anticipated, those small cities indeed had plenty of grain stock, and a few canned seafood factories were eager to secure a long-term order, willing to sell him the first batch of canned goods at a fair price, totaling a million cans. Thus, he hurried between several cities, coordinating wagon teams to transport the goods to the big cities and then chartering trains from the forestry company’s concessions to bring the food back to Thistlefort.

Even he was surprised that he had managed to negotiate so many deals in just ten days and was responsible for delivering the goods to the City of Qianlin. If it had been the him from before, he would have instinctively thought such an arrangement was sheer fantasy.

Yet, even so, Moge was still plagued by intense uneasiness. Ten days wasn’t long for business spanning multiple cities, but it was definitely a prolonged period of agony for Thistlefort, which was running out of food. He dreaded returning to a city on the brink of collapse and feared seeing streets full of people who had starved to death.

"Buddy, what do you see? The station hasn’t been abandoned, has it?"

The train driver, Meng Ke, was also a local, his mood no different from Moge’s, especially during the approach to the station, where he almost asked every few seconds.

"No abandonment... There are a lot of people standing on the platform," Moge replied anxiously. "Oh my God, what are they doing... Why are there so many people?"

"Could it be... they are fleeing famine?" the driver’s voice stiffened, "Damn it, we’ve got to notify the Paradise Sect right away, tell them the grain has arrived!"

"Let me handle that. You tell the others to lock the train doors, we can’t allow the train to get hijacked!" There was a pause as Moge spoke... He suddenly realized something was amiss. The gathered crowds didn’t have any look of distress or fear; they even had relaxed smiles on their faces as they waited for the train, and when their train entered the unloading area, hardly anyone deigned to glance at them, as though a cargo train wasn’t worthy of their attention at all.